


But the Sky

by amandaskankovich



Series: you're the answer [4]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-11
Updated: 2014-07-11
Packaged: 2018-02-08 09:27:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1935696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amandaskankovich/pseuds/amandaskankovich
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mandy doesn’t believe in God and Karen doesn’t either.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But the Sky

Mandy doesn’t believe in God and Karen doesn’t either.  
If you’d asked Eddie Jackson back when he was still around to be asked anything he would have listed Mandy as the cause to this effect.  
He’d never much cared for that Milkovich girl.  
But it doesn’t really matter does it how much you may disapprove of your daughter’s little friend. It doesn’t really matter if you’ve known her since she was prepubescent and pigtails and as innocent as she was ever going to be considering she was born into a house of horrors and never had a chance. Doesn’t matter.  
You’re a Man capital M and you’ll still find your eyes being drawn to her 14, 15, 16 year old cleavage.  
When your wife catches you checking out the ass of the minor (not the first time just the first time she noticed) you’ll deal with the small shame (small s) you feel by saying to your daughter that night at dinner that you think her best friend dresses too provocatively.  
You don’t approve.  
Your daughter will lift her fork and mime stabbing out your eyes..  
She’ll say to her mother, “You married a pedophile.”  
She’ll smile sweetly and ask to be excused.  
When she’s gone you’ll look at your wife and say, “She wouldn’t be like this if you still made her go to church.”  
*  
When she had prayed once upon a she did it every night like the good little girl she was supposed to be.  
She prayed for her mother to get better and for her father to love her.  
And God said, “No,” capital N or he said nothing at all.  
The end result was just the same.  
Karen never asked if Mandy ever prayed.  
Why do that?  
If she ever had she would have prayed for just the same.  
And just the same she got none of it.  
*  
There was a quote from Sylvia Plath she’d read once.  
I talk to God but the sky is empty.  
She guessed that about summed it up.  
*  
If there was a God maybe he was present in Ian Gallagher’s flaccid cock?  
Let her explain.  
A year and a half ago she watched Mandy write Mrs. Ian Gallagher on her notebook cover like the cliche of a girl she’d never been for one damn second.  
The letters burned bright in Mandy’s big loopy letters.  
Karen’s eyes burned looking at it. It was like staring into the sun.  
Mandy talked to her about how Ian had come to her rescue like some kind of super man.  
Like some kind of white knight.  
Mandy talked about how she’d have a real boyfriend now.  
Karen remembered the feeling of that limp organ in her mouth and she thought, “No, no you won’t.”  
But she couldn’t make herself say it out loud.  
They’d never been good at breaking each other’s hearts on purpose.  
That’s what the rest of the world was for.  
*  
"Ian’s gay." Mandy said a few days later walking into Karen’s room.  
Karen was typing on her computer but got up to sit down on the bed where Mandy was now laying.  
She put her hand on Mandy’s knee and said, “I know.”  
Mandy sat up a little, “You did?”  
"He turned you down. What other possibility could there be?"  
And maybe it was the way Mandy smiled at her that made her think, “Okay.”  
Okay.  
*  
If you asked them when it started.  
Forced themselves to point to a calendar.  
This could probably be it.  
If gun to your head you had to pick a day.  
And on the one hand she’d be grateful.  
But on the other why did something have to start it?  
Why did they need him at all?  
*  
The first day she met Ian how could she have known?  
Here’s the one person who could ruin everything.  
She thought she’d just been doing a favor for a friend.  
And Ian seemed nice.  
*  
Karen told herself to take solace in the fact that she’d had the physical evidence in her mouth that Ian was a 0-1 on the Kinsey scale if ever there was one.  
There was nothing for Mandy to pin her heart onto so there was nothing for Karen to live in constant fear about.  
So why did they both persist?  
*  
Karen’s never liked to share.  
She’s an only child.  
She’s never developed the skills.  
*  
She tried to make herself say it out loud.  
But how could she?  
Belong with but don’t belong to.  
Not when everyone else was always trying to own them.  
That was the whole point of them.  
She couldn’t ruin it.  
*  
And besides Mandy had dealt hadn’t she?  
With that one moment.  
Where Karen had looked at Lip and thought: Maybe.  
Touched her hand to his heart and thought:  
Maybe.  
*  
But here’s the problem: Her moment has passed.  
Mandy’s persists.  
With no hope.  
With nothing.  
Still.  
It’s right there and they’re frozen in it and no one will admit that it’s happening.  
*  
She wants to talk to her she can’t.  
She wants to talk to him and she almost does.  
Stands outside his job and almost walks in.  
But Mickey works there now too.  
So what’s she supposed to do?  
She wants to talk to him and here’s the thing: She really doesn’t.  
He doesn’t want to talk to her either.  
Not since she stopped talking to his brother.  
Not since she said, “There was a moment. It passed.”  
And Lip wasn’t ready to be her friend.  
Maybe he never would be.  
So what was there to say?  
They can’t talk to each other and what would she say, “I can’t even begin to fucking deal with you.”  
*  
He’s not even running and he’s in the lead.  
How the fuck is that fair?  
How the fuck do you even deal with that?  
*  
Ian Gallagher will never fuck Mandy Milkovich.  
But maybe that makes it worse?  
He can never disappoint her.  
He’s her bright and shining star of all that she ever wanted.  
He gets to be her idea of perfect.  
That imaginary white fence Mandy has been constructing inside her head since she was a child there’s Ian building it with his big strong arms.  
Karen digs her nails into the palm of her hand but still she won’t walk in the goddamn store.  
*  
And all it comes down to is he’s a boy.  
You’re not.  
*  
And she wants to scream, “Stop looking at him!”  
"Look at me!"  
"I’m not pretend!"  
But she bites her tongue instead.  
*  
Because she always hears Mandy’s voice inside her head saying, “No.”  
"We’re never going to be that."  
Reminding her that real hurts.  
And why can’t you just pretend?  
You get to touch her when you pretend.  
*  
What would Mandy say to her, “It’s different for you. Your dad’s dead. You could set the whole fucking world on fire and your mom would still love you.”  
And there was nothing to say to that.  
It was true.  
*  
She tells herself that there’s a difference.  
Between Lip wanting her and her wanting Mandy.  
Mandy wanting Ian.  
But the only difference is only one of them gets to have their first choice.  
And yes Mandy’s still trapped in her moment.  
But Karen’s still waiting to walk into hers. Theirs.  
Because it hasn’t started yet.  
It just hasn’t.  
*  
But it will.  
*  
She does have faith.

*

There’s a white picket fence she’s building inside her head.

And that sky is fucking Full.

Capital F.


End file.
